Encore Tampa Bay will now feature a new monthly blog post that features people in the Tampa Bay area who are living their Encore Careers.

I recently sat with Beth Houghton, executive director for the St. Petersburg Free Clinic. Beth has an amazing story to tell about her multiple encore careers! With an MBA and law degree, she worked at the prestigious firm of Arthur Andersen for eight years. Beth talks about feeling trapped in a job and a career track that was not fulfilling for her. After participating in Leadership St. Pete, she realized there were many people working in jobs that provided a more meaningful connection with their values and interest. She quit her job with no idea of what was next. Her well-meaning friends and colleagues were convinced she had lost her mind. Two months later, someone approached her about an open position as CFO for All Children’s Hospital. She had done a little volunteer work at the hospital and knew that this was a place where she could use her technical and professional experience to make a difference. She served as CFO and general counsel there for 12 years. She was constantly looking for expansion projects that would truly benefit the organization long-term and challenge her to re-tool.

Eventually, she realized that there was something else out there calling her. She jumped into an entrepreneurial adventure with a group of CPAs but soon realized this was not a fit for her. She was then offered a great opportunity to work with a talented group of professionals to build a community bank. It was an exciting experience to learn a new industry and work an amazing team of people. They sold the bank several years later, along with selling Scott Paint (the family business) which gave her the financial freedom to really focus on what was still pulling at her heart…

In 2005, Beth began to volunteer at the St. Pete Free Clinic. Working at the clinic really spoke to her and matched her strong Christian values. Next thing she knew, she was chairing the board for the clinic and in 2011 when the executive director vacated the position, she knew this was the job she always wanted! (By the way- Beth took me on a tour of the facility- and it is an amazing organization!)

I asked what her advice would be to others considering their encore careers. “She provided the following”:

Organize your financial affairs so you can afford to do what you love. Her great quote: “Live under your means and you will always feel wealthy!”

Listen to your own voice as you choose a meaningful vocation. Do not be swayed by others who do not understand your inner calling.

“Wallow” around in it for awhile. It takes time to figure our what’s next. Volunteering can help you figure out what fits for you.

This story is a great example of a person who not only followed her heart but paid attention to the opportunities as they unfolded before her. Beth is truly using her lifetime of skills and experience to help and work with an organization that coincides with her values and provides true meaning and purpose for her life! (On top of making a huge difference in our community!)

Do you know someone else who is living his or her encore career? Let me know who they are so we can continue to be inspired! Contact me at encoretampaybay@gmail.com

Fascination with the Fountain of Youth has inspired writers and artists, and maybe Ponce de Léon, a Spanish explorer, who reportedly looked for the Fountain of Youth in Florida but to no avail. However, with more than 4.3 million people over the age of 55 in Florida—more than 27% of the state’s population—and with most of us vigorous, happy, healthy, self-sufficient, and engaged in work and/or our community, we have found the fountain of longevity instead. What will we do with all of this extra time? Three of us boomers would like to show you how curiosity, confidence and vision fueled by experience, and a desire to help others learn online has led to a unifying passion, purpose, and someday, a paycheck for us.

IT STARTS WITH LEARNING ONLINE . . .

. . . made easy by computers as the primary tool for learning online. Computers are ubiquitous. They are on desktops, in tablets, smart phones, cameras, digital music devices, cars and cabs, and TVs. When they are connected to the internet, they give us access to the web—luscious content, most often free, to read and use with proper attribution to reimagine, expand on, elevate to a new level of clarity, and give back to the commons—as well as low-cost ways of connecting with peers and experts to accelerate our learning.

THE LEARNING REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING ONLINE

It’s one that allows us to rise above age, job, unemployment, or geographic constraints to attend classes FREE at Harvard or Stanford and other prestigious schools through MOOCs (massive open online courses). It is an individuated-networking-to-learn that allows us to follow our interests, not those dictated to us by state standards or supervisors. This revolution requires us to identify our learning goals and use various tools to gather information, make sense of new ideas in private or public spaces online, and share what we believe to be true with others. This meta-learning skillset will enable us to participate in robust learning online and apply what we know in real life.

WHAT IS THIS META-LEARNING SKILLSET AND HOW DOES ONE GET IT?

Books can help.

Howard Rheingold’s Net Smart: How to Survive Onlineoffers five digital literacies for aspiring online residents. He reminds us that “. . . present day literacies are not just the encoding and decoding skills an individual needs to know to join the community of literates but also the ability to use those skills socially, in concert with others, in an effective way.” These literacies, very much summarized, are:

New attention habits and information handling skills

Crap detection skills of knowing how to check claims and triangulating to verify sources

Recognizing that participating on the web “enables you (and everybody else) to act in your own self-interest in ways that create value for everybody.”

Networking, not speed dating events with drink in one hand and business cards in the other, but relying on social media and other structures that encourage “people to seek support, information, and a sense of belonging from sparsely knit, loosely bound networks as well as” more close-knit groups.

READING BOOKS AND BLOGS WILL GIVE ONE INSIGHT. BUT WE NEED PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE, TOO.

Recognizing that there is much to learn and try out to be effective and efficient online, three of us—Lyn Boyer, Lisa Levinson, and I—came together in 2012 to develop the Women’s Learning Studio, a place where women (and men) could safely experiment with online learning and internet tools and develop online leadership skills. We called it a studio on purpose—a place to practice, make mistakes, practice some more, get it right, learn.

Our path as entrepreneurs to build this business with its highly social overtones has been a learning journey; in practice a learning community that pulls and pushes each of us to do our best. And we are writing a bigger story for our lives with the Studio to help others travel more easily online and benefit with new knowledge, skills, and connections.

Another post later this summer will focus on Studio’s offerings. In the meantime, the book Claiming Your Place at the Fire: Living the Second Half of Your Life on Purpose (Leider, Shapiro) may give us something to think about: Baby boomers “today have a lot more time before they become elderly. With that time, we believe that their biggest personal challenge will be to reinvent themselves for what this longevity could mean.” Please join us in the fountain of longevity online to figure this out.

Our last blog covered an important aspect of discovering who you are – your strengths, values, character etc. This can be extremely helpful to see what you “bring to the table” in terms of finding your encore.

Now it’s time to take another step inside – to look at what is most important to you, what has been something you have always wanted to do, what motivates and interests you? In the Encore Career Handbook, Marci Alboher talks about the key question: what do you want to do? This means stepping away from what people expect you to be or what you think you should be doing. She suggests examining your motivations by asking yourself what you want an encore career to provide: to be engaged, to stimulate your mind, to earn income, to help others, to work on an important social issue. There are many more possible answers to that question- so let your mind go free. Check out this great short clip that explains the Encore Career Handbook.

Two other activities in the Encore Career Handbook focus on what issues pull you in (children, homeless, women, environment, community issues, etc.) and what roles appeal to you?” (advocacy, policy, coaching, teaching, marketing, leading, etc.). Another activity that I used in my own discovery process was to examine all the jobs and projects that I had worked on in my life and identify which tasks, or characteristics did I really enjoy and which did I NOT enjoy. This helped me to see the reasons I had lost some of my passion for my consulting business.

Leslie Granston in a recent blog on AARP’s great new website, “Work Reimagined”, talks about five key questions to consider. She also makes a great point that reinvention does not always mean leaving your job. The possibilities for reinventions are endless! You could circle back to a job you had a while ago or elevate a hobby or interest into a career, or change the focus of your current job or follow a new interest.

On Friday, I attended a great leadership conference sponsored by the Non Profit Leadership Center. I heard a fantastic, inspirational speaker, John Acuff. He talked specifically about our generation searching for meaning or encore. One of his great quotes really hit home for me. “Finding your dream job (encore) may not be about discovery but rather recovery. It’s an act of rescuing something from the past that you loved but you lost.” It is another great example of how you can go about doing that internal work.

I leave you today with one more great inspirational thought from John Acuff’s latest book, “Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters”. He says the starting line is all you can control. It may not all become clear what the finish line looks like but the only way you can ever get there is to start. One baby step at a time….

SO LET’S GET STARTED!

What are you going to do to start your Encore Journey? Stay tuned for the upcoming posts that help with the Identify Stage. Don’t forget to pass on my posts to people who may be wondering what is next in their life.

Guest blogger, Lisa Jacobson of WorkplaceSolutionsTampa shares insights about the importance of self-awareness when embarking on midlife career decisions.

Are you the same person you were decades ago or have you changed? A lot of people do. Maybe you know someone who used to be extroverted and gregarious but now, she’s rather quiet and bookish. Perhaps your once stoic, dispassionate husband now cries freely during movies. You might have a friend who after years of running a company yearns to connect to youth by mentoring students in math.

Our energy and attention naturally shifts as we experience midlife. In the first half of life we tend to specialize, establishing a firm sense of identity. As we age, we tend to round ourselves out and generalize. We start to use the untapped inventory of previously underplayed personality traits. Approaching the second half of life can be a major transition. For a few this is seamless. But for most of us, it’s a period of discomfort, even depression. We ask ourselves, “Is this all there is?” As a career consultant, I think this discomfort is good. I often tell my clients, “Discomfort is a growing pain”. Discomfort compels us to reflect, reevaluate and reinvent. If you are at this crossroad, begin by investigating who you are right now.

Take Inventory.

Rediscover who you are by taking a few online self-assessments. One of my favorite websites is sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center. It has dozens of self-assessments. Go to authentichappiness.org and register. Take all the assessments you wish – they’re free! For career insights, I recommend the following:

Authentic Happiness Inventory – Measures Overall Happiness

The Grit Survey – Measures the Character Strength of Perseverance

VIA Survey of Character Strengths – Measures 24 Character Strengths

Work-Life Questionnaire – Measures Work-Life Satisfaction

Meaning in Life Questionnaire – Measures Meaningfulness

Another favorite is StrengthsFinder2.0. Created by the renowned Gallup organization, this scale identifies at 5 major personality strengths with themes that describe work styles. Compare these results with the VIA survey. Look for patterns and redundancies. If you’re not into assessments, just ask yourself the Three Questions exercise. Write at least five brief answers under each question.

What Do I Value? What do I Enjoy? What am I Good at?

Again, compare the results and look for overlap. The patterns and redundancies will lead you to a launching point where encore career options are revealed.

HOW DO I FIND MY ENCORE CAREER?

So how do you know what your Encore Career could be? For me, it was this nagging feeling inside myself that there was something else that I was meant to do. Often it might be an event or situation that forces you to pay attention to that nagging feeling. In my case, it was when my daughter left for college. There I was an empty nester facing a major change in the biggest role in my life! The research and recent articles highlight the fact that other external events such a loss of a loved one or loss of a job can also move us closer to finding our Encore Career. For other people- just knowing that there are resources and support to help you along this journey- can be the best motivation to get started!!!

I want to spend the next couple of blogs focused on key considerations and resources as you begin thinking about your possible Encore Career. There are a number of excellent books that have been written in the last couple of years that will be extremely helpful for you as you go through these stages of figuring out your next act. Marci Albhoher’s – “The Encore Career Handbook” does an excellent job of laying out the challenges/ opportunities, tips, tools, and resources to help you find and connect to your Encore Career. Attached is a great article from USA today that summarizes key takeaways from the Encore Career Handbook. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/01/13/encore-career/1821111/. I would also recommend that you read more about Encore Careers on the www.encore.org website.

Everyone’s “Encore Journey” is different. What one can expect however is that it often means a slow transition, with lots of ups and downs and real introspection. It’s not a direct path. What I know for sure, is that this journey is very different than your typical job search process. In the Encore Career Handbook, Marci talks about two distinct parts in the Encore Journey. The first part is internal, which includes self-reflection, assessments and exploration. The second part is really about trying it out, or taking a test drive in the real world!

It also means giving yourself permission to:

Step away from your expected role or the job that you may have spent your life working in.

Allow some real thinking, reading, and internal reflection.

Be creative, think out of the box, consider something you have always been “intrigued” with, to take a risk!

ENCORE READINESS

So how do you know if you are ready to take this journey of exploration, risk, and opportunity? Marci includes in the Encore Career Handbook- an Encore readiness quiz. (Very helpful!). So I leave you with a few questions to ponder:

Do you have ideas about what you might want to do next?

Is there something you feel drawn to that you can’t stop thinking about?

Are you in a place right now where you can comfortably move forward without other pressing issues to deal with in your life?

It should come as no surprise that large numbers of Baby Boomers are bucking tradition and not willing to accept the prescribed life that the “Traditionalists” carved out in the 1950’s. (Remember our favorite motto? “Hell no, we won’t go!”) Several recent surveys show that Baby Boomers are not ready to stop work and that they believe there is another big thing that is still calling them.

IMPACT FACTORS

Several factors have shaped this new reality. First, our life expectancy has skyrocketed. In 1915 it was 50 years old, in 1980 it was 75 and now a large percentage of us will live into our 90’s. Second, the recession and the nature of work has radically changed. Some people either can’t afford to retire or realize that they have another 20 plus years of active engagement left in them.

LATEST SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

There are two powerful ground breaking books that really speak to this new reality.

Mark Walton, in his new book, “Boundless Potential” captures about seven years of research in the area of brain science, psychology, sociology, creativity and happiness. His three core discoveries: 1) We (Baby Boomers) are hard wired for reinvention and emerging brain power in the second half of life; 2) A growing number of boomers are learning to leverage their experience and wisdom into profitable new careers and businesses that can impact our world; 3) Longevity experts report that meaningful and purposeful work can pay back in terms of long term health and happiness. Check out this Youtube video about Walton’s book:

Another book by Marc Freedman (founder of Encore.org) “THE BIG SHIFT- Navigating the New Stage Beyond Mid Life” also lays out some reasons why retirement as we have known it for the last 50 years really does not work for this generation. Here is the link to an excerpt of his book here.

LET’S MAKE THE SHIFT

What really moved me about “The Big Shift” was Freedman’s call to action to create an “Encore Stage of Life” characterized by purpose, contribution and commitment. Marc said, “We believe that this changing notion of aging in America offers the prospect of the ‘experience dividend’ of staggering proportions. Never before have so many Americans had so much experience- with so much time and interest in using it”. He calls for a SHIFT in thinking about the real potential for this over-50 Baby Boomer generation. This also means a SHIFT in society norms, institutions, public policies, programs and perceptions! It starts with how we see ourselves in this new stage of life.

I challenge you to read these books (or summaries) and get excited about the possibilities and opportunities that our society and Baby Boomers have to recreate for this next stage of life!

LIVING PROOF

In one of his chapters, Walton cites a long history of famous men and women over the age of 60 who have proven the theory that our brain actually is wired for advanced emotional intelligence, and enhanced creativity. I leave you today with a great example: 88 year old, Hazel McCallion, who started her Encore Career at 57 as Mayor of Mississauga 31 years ago!

(Hazel playing hockey)

Bottom line…We are NOT ready to retire, but ready to Re-Fire! Boomers still have a lot to offer in this second half.

Let’s start the Encore Movement!

How will we as a nation, as a community, make it easier for the largest, best educated, longest living generation to create a better world for the generations to follow? What are your reactions or thoughts?

Encore Tampa Bay is an initiative of the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, a registered 501 (c ) (3) organizations. Donations accepted by the Community Foundation to support the work of Encore Tampa Bay are tax deductible.